Web design focuses on the look and feel of a website, the visuals, layout, colors, and typography that create the user experience. Web development focuses on the functionality, the coding, database logic, and interactive features that make the site work behind the scenes. In short, designers make it beautiful and intuitive, while developers make it functional and dynamic.
Sometimes, yes! Some designers know basic coding like HTML, CSS, or JavaScript to bring their designs to life. But full-scale web development usually requires deeper programming knowledge, languages like PHP or frameworks like Drupal or WordPress, to handle automation, databases, and advanced features.
Designers start by visualizing the site’s layout and structure based on the client’s goals and target audience. Developers then take that vision and build it using code, turning static designs into an interactive, fully functional website. Both roles complement each other, the best websites are the result of teamwork between creativity and logic.
Knowing the difference helps you hire the right expert for the right task. If you need help with visuals, branding, and layout, you’ll want a web designer. If you need features, automation, or custom functionality, you’ll want a web developer. Understanding both roles saves time, money, and ensures your website works beautifully and looks amazing.
Goldlilys Media combines the best of both worlds, artistic design and full-stack development. Frances handles both the creative and technical sides to deliver websites that are visually engaging, user-friendly, and built for performance, so clients can focus on their mission instead of managing code.
While conversing with some people during networking events, I have come to the conclusion that people do not know the difference between “Web Design” and “Web Development”.
Though both can have a mixture of similar end product (26 Things To Note Before You Develop A Website), the focus is very different.
In this article, I’ll discuss what both of these careers have in common and how they are different.
Web Design focuses more on the front-end look and feel of a website. The front-end is what your visitors/users will see.
It is what makes your website unique and that creativity will help users remember your business and keep them coming back for more.
If a customized website is your goal, a web designer’s job is to assemble the information from the client during the consultation phase.
From the client’s input, a web designer will be able to visualize and describe how the website is ultimately going to look.
A better overview of a designer’s job is UX Is Not UI Design .
Web design elements range from color scheme (coordinating the mood of your target audience), graphics (images/logos/banners), layouts (placement of blocks on a page) and typography (fonts).
There are also talented web designers who do some basic coding that makes the interaction of websites possible using jQuery, HTML5 and CSS3. However, the coding parts are usually done by the Web Developer.
The focus of web development is the back-end features and functionality of a website. Developers make the vision of the Web Designers come to life.
Web developers learned programming languages like PHP, Javascript, or ASP to create logical algorithms to make features and interactions possible.
With the invention of frameworks like Drupal/WordPress, Compass/SASS and Bootstrap, web development can be done more efficiently.
Why? Presentational markup languages like HTML5 and CSS3 do not need to be manually coded every time a new page is created.
Depending on the conditions discussed during the Consultation Phase, adding a new page can be as simple as clicking on a button.
Adding a new feature can be done by using plugins or modules to the framework.
However, these plugins and modules wouldn’t be possible without the hard work of the web developers who contributed to the framework in the first place.
A Web Developer’s main purpose is to make the complexity of websites as simple as possible for the end-users by automating the parts that rarely change.
The parts that do change, mainly the interaction (clicks, slideshows, events, etc) and front-end look and feel of a website coming from the web designer, can be customized by the web developer who can put everything together because they understand the underlying code of the plugins/modules.
The final product is a fully functional website that can be used by anyone without needing to know how to code.
All you need is to know your business and to present the written content that describes your business to potential customers and new visitors.
As they say, “content is king”. Your Web Designer and Web Developer will help you focus on writing the best content, not learning how to design and code your website.
We manage that for you because we enjoy it, so you can pursue what you love to do too.
Frances Naty Go is the founder of Goldlilys Media, where she helps mission-driven organizations turn their websites into clear, durable systems that support meaningful work over time. She works with museums, nonprofits, health and wellness brands, higher education, life sciences, travel organizations, and expert-led businesses.
With a background in Computer Science from UC San Diego, Frances brings a thoughtful, strategic approach to building digital experiences that educate, orient, and build trust, without unnecessary complexity.
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